Lydia has not yet entered the “age of constant questions,” but she is definitely growing in knowledge as she learns through first-hand experience about the world around her and how grammar works. Here are a few of her observations.

“I think Jacob has a bottom.” (I replied that yes, Jacob does have a bottom.) “I think Jacob has a bottom like Benjamin.” (This exchange happened a few weeks after Thanksgiving, when she happened to be in the bathroom when one of her cousins came in to use it.)

“Mama! My pear has juice in it!” (She noticed this when she took a few bites out of a whole pear that I’d given her for lunch one day.)

I was asking her who all loves her. She said that Daddy and Mommy did, of course. Then she said, “My sisters love me.” Tim and I asked her where her sisters were. She thought about it for a minute and then declared, “I have a sister in my tummy. Her name is Caleb.” I started to smile and laugh at this, and then she admonished me, “Don’t be funny, Mommy!”

“There’s butter inside it!” (I had just given her a lemon-cream-filled cookie.)

“I can’t. I’m too busy right now.” (She and Tim (my husband) were playing, and Tim had asked her to cover up with a blanket.)

“It’s not hot sauce. It’s cold sauce.” (She had grabbed a packet of hot sauce out of the fridge and suggested that we use it for dinner. I had told her what it was and that we didn’t need it.)

“It’s just mouth water.” (She had been sucking on her fingers, and noticed that they were a little wet, and she told me that when I asked her what was on her hands.)

She was in another room and I did something that made a loud noise. Concerned, she ran to me and said, “Why did you do?” She paused for half a second and then corrected herself to “What did you do?”

“Mmm. Can I have another crazy one?” (I had just given her a Craisin out of my snack mix.)

When her jacket is open, she wants me to unzip it. When it’s closed, she wants me to zip it. She has similar requests for button-up shirts and for the snaps on her pants.

She also still gets “you” and “I” mixed up because she will say, “Can you do such-and-such?” When I start to do it for her, she gets upset because in her mind, SHE wanted to be the one to do it.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep a straight face when I’m listening to her learn. But life with a 3-year-old is never boring. That’s for sure.